Determination of Persons at a High Risk of Falling in a Population of Healthy Community-dwelling Elderly Japanese

Abstract

Background: Falling is an important social issue for the elderly. This study’s aim is to determine useful risk factors that could be used to screen for the elderly at high risk of falling. Methods: Participants included 965 healthy elderly individuals ≥ 60 years of age (349 males and 616 females; men age: 70.1 ± 7.1 years). We assessed fall risk in these elderly using Demura et al’s fall-risk assessment scale (DFRA), which consists of previous experiences with falls and 50 other fall-risk assessment items representing the five risk factors related to the potential for falling, physical function, disease and physical symptoms, environment, and behavior and character (Demura et al., 2010). Receiver-operating characteristics analysis was conducted using previous experiences with falls (faller or non-faller) as the dependent variable and each fall-risk factor score in the DFRA as the independent variable. Results: The potential for falling was calculated as the highest area under the ROC curve (AUC) (AUC = 0.80; sensitivity = 0.87; specificity = 0.75). However, it was difficult to screen for the elderly as high risk of falling using other fall-risk factor scores. Conclusion: These results suggest that the potential for falling is a useful risk factor that can be used to screen for the elderly at high risk of falling.

Keywords

• cross-sectional study
• prevention of falls
• risk assessment
• ROC analysis